


What Happened to the Pluto Outpost?

by AshKetchup98



Series: Lost Worlds [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Aliens, Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-18 23:23:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22201546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshKetchup98/pseuds/AshKetchup98
Summary: Set in the late 22nd century, the Earth outpost on Pluto has disappeared. The S.F.S Athens is sent to investigate...Part one of the Lost Worlds series
Series: Lost Worlds [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1715125
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	1. Captain Trina Grey's Log, S.F.S Athens, 22nd January 2194

On the 20th of January 2194, all contact with the United Earth outpost on Pluto was lost, communications just went dark. 37 hours later my ship, the Spacefleet Ship Athens, a state of the art defensive response vessel, was launched from Basepoint station to investigate this sudden disappearance.

I was in the Texas Command Centre only hours before their disappearance, all seemed well. The Pluto outpost had just finished sending their bi-weekly systems report, all was well, no damage to any communications or life support equipment which would have been possible explanations for the sudden silence. Environmental controls were working at peak efficiency, so they could not have frozen to death. Any and all probable causes had been accounted for and promptly discounted. 

But that's my crews specialty, the strange, the alien. As a species, Humans have encountered some extraterrestrial life before. We know of 8 species in a 55 light year radius of our small star system. First contact was no where near as romantic or destructive as humans 2 centuries ago would have thought. It was on humanity's first interstellar mission to our nearest stellar neighbor, Proxima Centauri, in 2119. The aliens made contact with the ship, the S.F.S Columbus, over a planetoid at the edge of their system, exchanged greetings and asked us to turn back and be on our way. Very underwhelming, I know. But since, United Earth Command has created the Division of Spacefleet that my ship is part of, in case of any more rigourous first contacts. 

The fact of the matter is that if we're being sent out, and not on some patrol of the edge of the solar system, the Command thinks it's something big. I'll get back to you on whether I'm excited, or scared.


	2. Captain Trina Grey's Log, S.F.S Athens, 24th January 2194

My first officer, Commander Allen, tells me the Athens will be arriving at Pluto by this time tomorrow. Our communications systems have been patchy at best since passing Saturn's rings 12 hours ago and Lieutenant Masuya swears up and down that the sensors are patchy too, with small holes in the readings between the asteroids. It's strange but does not warrant investigating since an outpost crewed by just under 200 people is potentially in danger. However I do have this odd feeling about it, like I need to turn the ship around and put as much distance between me and space as possible. 

This anxiety has become common amongst the crew, all 80 of us, alone in a case of metal in the vacuum of space, protected only by particle shields and 8 plasma cannons. Only Commander Allen, the seasoned veteran of missions numbering in the tripe digits, including tours in the interstellar void, is keeping me assured in this mission. He doesn't scare easy, so he tells me. 

Masuya is currently running a diagnostic on the small glitches in our systems, this won't have results until tomorrow morning. But the importance of our mission doesn't allow for delay. It's not like we can get through to Command to request one anyway, we stopped hearing from them this morning.


	3. Captain Trina Grey's Log, S.F.S Athens, 25th January 2194

We have arrived. 

Pluto looks devastated, the once beautiful world is now shattered. There are cracks on the crust of the planet spanning hundreds of miles, centred around where the outpost once stood. The pure destruction leads us to only one conclusion, they're all dead.

However the only way we got that answer was the visual evidence. The closer we got to Pluto, the worse our sensors got, now they do not work at all. Not only that, but there is a large dark spot over the planet's northern pole, we don't have sensors but Masuya estimates it to be 300 kilometres in length. Allen suggests that this could be what destroyed the outpost and that we should get out of Pluto's orbit as soon as possible. 

I had ordered the Athens to turn around and set a course back to Earth, but then our propulsion went offline, something's hailing us.


	4. First Officer Joseph Allen's Log, S.F.S Athens, 27th January 2194

They're all dead, Captain Grey, everyone. All that's left is me, Masuya and Crewman Ennis, and we don't have long, the life support in this escape pod is failing and fast.

So like a "Good Officer", the kind I've been my whole career, I'm using my final hours to log what happened above Pluto. 

What we were greeted with was nothing short of horrific, something had glassed the planet's surface. Captain Grey made the wisest decision of the day by ordering a retreat, but then we suffered a power drain. That behemoth above Pluto didn't want us to escape. After the drain there was silence, Trina froze, so did we all. As if we were all taken over by a feeling of pure doom. Maybe it was a deliberate effect or just a human reaction, I'll let the phyciatrists answer questions like that.

It felt like we were all frozen in that impending dread for days, though it could not have been more than a few minutes, before power came back to comms and a face appeared on the main viewscreen. It was like nothing we've ever seen, nothing like anything any human has ever seen. It's eyes were like black holes, all 3 of them, 2 where a humans would be and a third gaping hole on its forehead. It was noseless, 2 slits above it's mouth was the only evidence of a respitory system. It's mouth was wide, in a sort of contorted smile, like a beast above it's prey. The creatures skin shone white in contrast to it's dark features, over it's head was a black, fleshy hood.

The thing looked at none of us in particular, but I couldn't help the feeling it was staring into my soul. And then it spoke, it's mouth didn't move, it was like it spoke in my mind. What it said terrified me, "You should never have come, however you are here, your time has come." The picture then distorted and the alien disappeared from the viewscreen, showing us the planet and the dreadnought above it.

I sprung back to life first, I wasn't going to go down without a fight, I shouted in the bridge. This woke up the bridge crew and Captain Grey and I barked out orders like a dynamic command duo. Shields up, battle stations, charge plasma cannons, everyone was working for their lives, and in that a kind of hop grew.

In hindsight it was a fool's hope, this thing was massive, and it was veering towards us.

The Captain ordered the first shots and all 8 plasma cannons launched bolt after bolt of plasma, the payload of just one of those bolts was similar to that of the old atomic bombs of the mid 20th century, a barrage like the one we launched at the alien ship should have been enough to blast it's forward decks out of existence.

However the alien shields, or whatever they used, we had no sensors to confirm it with, sponged it all. Not a scratch on the 300 kilometre darkness approaching us. That did not stop them shooting back, a purple mass of energy shot out and skimmed our shields down the middle of the ship. And like that the Athens' state of the art protective shielding had been shaved off, small explosions filled the bridge and Captain Grey ordered an evacuation.

We were down to the last pod when she told me she wasn't coming, someone had to hold them off, and a Captain goes down with her ship. She died honourably, using what little power the Athens had left to distract the aliens long enough for all the pods to clear the blast radius as our ship was destroyed. 

There was a moment of silent mourning before the other pods signals started going dark, one by one, Ennis looked out of our pods window and fainted. The monster ship was destroying the escape pods, one by one, systematically, like they were enjoying it.

The only reason we are alive 2 days later was Masuya, he had a theory that they could see the pod's power signals and that's how they knew where to shoot, so to counter this he shut down all the escape pods systems, including life support. It seemed to work, once the pod nearest to us was blown away, the ship reversed course and returned to it's previous position above Plutos northern pole.

The only thing is when we reactivated our systems they came back faulty, we only had 2 days worth of life support, drifting in space. At our current speed we will reach the Jupiter orbital station some time in March. We are dead in space and running out of air with each breath. 

So this is Commander Joseph Allen, signing off. Command, tell my daughter I love her.


End file.
